Essential Survival Gear Catalog

One of the big problems that houses in colder climates have is
that they don’t have wood fireplaces and their heating systems
require electricity to work.

Gas furnaces require electricity to run the blower and
thermostat, and even most pellet stoves require electricity
to run the auger.    It’s not uncommon to find whole
neighborhoods of houses with gas furnaces, gas fire
places, lots of windows, and no backup if the electricity
goes out.

As many people find out every winter, this means is that in a
power outage, you might have all the fuel you could want to heat
your home, but still not be able to.  As I’ve talked about in
other articles, you can keep yourself warm enough by dressing
warmly, creating a shelter within your house, and using the fuel
you have to heat liquids to drink.  That being said, you may
still need to keep your house above freezing to protect your
plumbing.

Keep in mind that the strategy that I use may not work for you.
In many cases, electrical work must be done to code by a licensed
electrician for your homeowners’ insurance to remain valid.  This
is serious stuff.  It could kill you or loved ones, or cause your
house to burn to the ground with no possibility of a check from
your insurance company.  Don’t screw around with this stuff…get a
licensed electrician to help you.  Even then, this method may not
be up to code for your area and it might require serious
modification to be legal and safe.

In short, what you do is add an outlet and a plug to your furnace
(instead of running power straight from your circuit panel), get a long
heavy extension cord, that will run from your furnace to your
car, a properly sized inverter for your car, and extra gas.

If you’re fuzzy on what an inverter does, it takes the 12V DC power
from your cigarette lighter and turns it into 120V AC power that will
power your furnace blower.

This is obviously an ugly solution, and won’t work in many
apartments or condos, but it IS a field expedient way to heat
your house when you’ve got fuel but no electricity.

Since it’s very modular, there are several benefits to
implementing this strategy, namely:

1.   It’s fast and inexpensive to implement.  $100-$400 for the
inverter, and very little else if you have a friend who’s an
electrician.

2.   You can easily upgrade from using your car’s alternator to
using a generator.

3.   It might actually get you to start keeping enough extra fuel
on hand.

4.   An inverter has all sorts of benefits in a survival
situation, from converting solar power to 120V, powering
computers, running other appliances from your automobile, and
charging batteries that you only have wall chargers for.  In the
meantime, you can use it on road trips, for camping, and more.

Here are some “gotchas” that you’re going to want to look out
for:

1.   You’ll notice that there is no connection between the
inverter and the electrical panel or double-male plugs in this
setup.  It is designed to power one appliance at a time.  If you
want to get tricky and do more, have an electrician set it up for
you.

2.   Your alternator may not put out enough amperage at warm idle
to power your inverter.  Check the specs on your alternator (It’s
very unlikely that they’ll be easy to find), have a mechanic test
the output of your alternator at warm idle, or test it yourself.

A simple way to test it yourself is to shine your
headlights at a wall with the engine idling, plug in your
inverter, and plug in your furnace or some other appliance to the
inverter.  If your headlights get dimmer and stay dimmer, then the
alternator on your car isn’t big enough to power your inverter and
you need to try a different vehicle, increase the idle speed of your car
(which will run through gas quicker), or upgrade the alternator
in your car.  A beefed up alternator will put out more amperage
at lower RPMs, but will also cost you $100-$300 more.

3.   You need to make sure that your inverter is sized correctly
to handle both the run load of your furnace blower and the peak
load when it starts up.  As an example, if the run load of your
furnace is 2.3 amps, the peak load might be 6.5 amps.

4.   You need to make sure that you have a HEAVY, rated extension
cord that’s rated for the length and current load that you’ll be
using.

5.   Make sure that you have a licensed electrician set up the
plug/outlet to local code.

One of the beautiful things about this mini-project is that you
can go out and buy your inverter, extra gas, and extension cord
TODAY.  Even if you never get the interface with your furnace set
up, you’ll still be able to benefit from the extra gas and the
inverter.  Still, I’d get on the phone and call an electrician to
schedule a time to have them come over and get your furnace(s)
set up right away.